He won the British Empire Games gold medal in 1934, when they were held in Britain. Most of the events were in London but the cycling events were in Manchester, because even then Manchester was recognised as a bit of a centre for track cycling.

We’ve also got a bike that he road later in his career which is very similar to the one that he rode during those games.

This
exhibition has coincided with the Tour de France coming to England and
the Commonwealth Games. I went to see the Tour at Hebden Bridge.

It
was really busy. Our exhibition is aimed at a family audience, and
there were loads of families out there watching and getting excited
about it, which is fab.

It’s quite an intimate space – we
couldn’t show all the bikes we have in the collection, and we are really
focused on it being about track cycling.

We’re trying to show
how Manchester has this real heritage of track cycling. There was an
outdoor velodrome here from 1892, which was very popular and used to
draw crowds in their thousands on a weekly basis during the summer.

It’s been fantastic fun to put together. The best thing has been building a relationship with British Cycling.

We’ve recorded lots of films talking to stars of the team. Ed Clancy, Danny King, Becky James, Jody Cundy, Sarah Storey: all these gold medallists have given their time so that we can film them, talking about how kids can get involved with cycling and where they got their first inspiration from.

We’ve got an interactive time trial so people can get on a bike – it’s static, obviously – and do a lap of the track in the Manchester Velodrome and compare themselves to the best times ever.

One of the star objects they’ve loaned us is Victoria Pendelton’s bike from the 2012 Olympic Games, so that’s the star of the show.

It’s shown quite close to the Boneshaker so it looks completely different. It has the very aerodynamic shape that you’d expect, but obviously the basic shape of a bike has been in place since about the 1890s, so it’s the materials and the aerodynamics that are different.

It’s a carbon fibre bike so it’s very sleek. It’s black: all the British Cycling bikes are completely black. It’s quite stunning in its case.”

Pedal Power is at the Museum of Science and Industry until March 2015.

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